At the very start, The Grasshopper stated that one of the high themes of this blog is the freedom of individuals to act and say as they think, without fear of harm from any quarter. In response, one esteemed reader commented:
I am very worried about "freedom".
Surely we only have freedom to act within the confines of the law of the land, let alone the confines of morality generally.
People, generally, seem to think they have or want or need "freedom"......
Surely any freedoms, though, come with attached responsibilities...and recognising one’s responsibilities to the wider community is more important than a simple desire for "freedom"?
Good points, well presented, and worthy of a more complete response than just a reply to the original comment. Let’s start with the first of those points, ‘…freedom to act within the confines of the law of the land…’
Yes, agree absolutely. But how much law does a land need? Apart from natural law, which is closely tied to morality and has at its core – according to St. Thomas Aquinas, at least – the principle that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided”, it could be argued that everything else is man-made – or at least government-made – and therefore open to challenge. For sure, the three-out-of-ten commandments that actually still have bearing in today’s world – don’t kill, don’t steal and don’t bear false witness1 – are pretty much at the heart of John Stuart Mill’s definition of harm in On Liberty. The rest, it could be argued, is open to question.
So, is The G. advocating the abolishment of all laws that aren’t tied directly to the preservation of individual life, security and property? Of course not. Should there be a penalty for not stopping at a red light? Of course there should – someone could get killed or hurt. But how about parking the car for longer than the prescribed time? And The G. has posted a little already about the ‘laws’ pertaining to al fresco musical performances. They are at best misunderstood, at worst wilfully abused. They should not even exist.
But why, in a country like England, do so many laws exist? Well, Dominic Cummings’ attempt to change the whole machinery of English government from the inside didn’t turn out well and he has been blasted for it – perhaps rightly so. But in a 2014 talk to the Institute of Public Policy Research he made two interesting points. First, that the whole Whitehall machine is purely geared towards the making of new legislation and not the review of the usefulness of existing laws. Second, that the average politician is narcissistic, uneducated (for the job at hand, at least) and unsuited to the role of lawmaker. Rory Stewart goes a stage further and talks about politicians having nothing else to do than vote on new legislation through the lobbies.
So perhaps this is it: the legislative process is there to justify the existence of government. If they don’t make new laws, there is no need for them as people. And because they are the type of people they are, they simply can’t bear that. And that’s before we even drop down to local government and the bye law process.
I’ll take up the point from my esteemed reader regarding the responsibility that goes with freedom in a later post. But to close this one, I am reminded of Clause 39 from the Magna Carta – one of only four clauses that are still alive today:
“No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land”
Of the other seven, three are about God, which let’s face it few people take notice of these days, while the other four – honouring parents, committing adultery, coveting wives and goods – seem to be either shouted down by the social justice brigade or positively encouraged in today’s money-dominated world.